Grass Roots

Grass Roots achieves so little with so much. The source is a best-selling novel from Stuart Woods (one of his earlier works was translated into the satisfying miniseries Chiefs). Grass Roots has sex, murder, mystery, lunatic-fringe politics, provocative dialogue, even some bold skin shots. The cast is attractive by TV standards: Corbin Bernsen of L.A. Law; Mel Harris of thirtysomething (in her second miniseries of this sweeps month); Reginald VelJohnson of Family Matters; Katherine Helmond of Who`s the Boss?

Charlie Crist brought a national Democratic Party leader to South Florida on Monday, the second time in three days he's had an assist to gain media attention and public interest in his campaign for governor. Tuesday's visitor was Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who made appearances in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties. Friday night, it was former President Bill Clinton. “I have tremendous respect for Governor Crist. I have since we came in as governors together,” Patrick said after he and Crist spent 45 minutes listening to a litany of frustrations and hopes from eight people, mostly teachers, involved in education.

Anti-choice people in South Dakota were celebrating when that state's legislature passed the law virtually outlawing abortions, even in cases of rape or incest. The governor has signed it, being an anti-choice man, setting off a chain of events that could take the issue to the Supreme Court. I think it is a dangerous precedent. What grows out of this is anyone's guess. The grass roots are for choice, particularly in cases of rape or incest.

If you don't already hold a ticket to President Barack Obama's campaign appearance Sunday in West Palm Beach, you'll likely be left out in the heat. And if you were planning to be downtown around dinner time anyway, anticipate some traffic snarls and delays. The president is bringing a bus tour to the Palm Beach County Convention Center at 4:50 p.m., with a few thousand free tickets already handed out by five local campaign offices Thursday night. But with Florida again a battleground state this November, chances are there will be more opportunities to cheer or jeer the commander-in-chief and his challenger at nearby appearances.

Editor's Note: As a community newspaper, The Forum tells the stories of our neighbors' daily lives, including their struggles and accomplishments. In this issue, we introduce to you a few locals who have toiled at the grass-roots level to make an impact on their community in 2009. What kind of impact will you make in 2010? Tell us at tamarac@tribune.com.

According to Sun Sentinel article, Gov. Scott says he's interested in grass roots. He says it is important to get people to the polls. What he means is Republican voters. A governor should be concerned with getting everyone to vote, not just his political party. He signed a law where everyone must have photo I.D. The law penalizes registration groups, two day deadline to turn in approved list, or face fine or jail time. This is...

Haitians and police will try to bridge the gulf of language and lifestyle dividing them during a workshop series approved Thursday by the Palm Beach County Commission. "I think (Haitians are) very much a disenfranchised part of our society," said Commissioner Ken Adams. "And it`s our obligation to reach out." Commissioners agreed to allocate a $2,380 state grant given the Community Relations Board to finance the May 20-22 sessions at Palm Beach Atlantic College in West Palm Beach. "The Haitian people are in the 20th century trying to do things that other minorities have done in the 18th and 19th centuries," said board chairman Ron Moses.

Without having formally announced her candidacy for Congress, Palm Beach County Commissioner Dorothy Wilken has captured what could be an important endorsement. Union leader George Hudspeth on Wednesday said he has begun campaigning for Wilken in her bid to replace U.S. Rep. Dan Mica, D-Lake Worth, who is running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Lawton Chiles. "I think Dorothy Wilken will be the best congressman for the grass-roots people," said Hudspeth, business manager of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 323 in West Palm Beach.

Ah, the `60s. Remember them? Remember the music? Remember songs like Happy Together, Don`t You Care, Let`s Live for Today, Save Your Heart for Me, This Diamond Ring; 2 1/2 minute anthems for lovers that Motown acts didn`t sing? Well, the groups that sang those songs are on the road again and passing through South Florida in the Happy Together Tour, a 125-city marathon featuring four of the most popular singles bands of the `60s: the Turtles, the Buckinghams, the Grass Roots and Gary Lewis and the Playboys.

Repackaged for a 20th anniversary reunion tour, the original Monkees, three quarters of them, anyway, showed 8,000 fans at the Flagler Race Track in Miami that some pop songs never die and that you`re never really too old to rock `n` roll. Backed by an eight-piece band complete with horn section, Mickey Dolenz, Peter Tork and Davey Jones zipped through 18 songs during their 60-minute set. (They wrote short ones back then.) As they did during their TV program from 1966-68, Dolenz and Jones handled most of the lead vocals during the show.

According to Sun Sentinel article, Gov. Scott says he's interested in grass roots. He says it is important to get people to the polls. What he means is Republican voters. A governor should be concerned with getting everyone to vote, not just his political party. He signed a law where everyone must have photo I.D. The law penalizes registration groups, two day deadline to turn in approved list, or face fine or jail time. This is...

U2 was all the rage in South Florida this week. But as popular as the band's music is, so is the cause so closely associated with U2's voice. For years, lead singer Bono — real name Paul Hewson — has been a prominent advocate for anti-poverty measures through the grass-roots ONE organization. Some years ago, he was among the field of contenders for a Nobel Peace prize. So, on Wednesday, as Sun Life Stadium's parking lots filled with tailgaters, and concert-goers stood in snaking lines, a platoon of people in black shirts with ONE emblazed in large white letters, and white rubber wristbands with ONE indented on them, went to work signing up volunteers and asking them to sign a petition in support of a global immunization program.

Some bad areas are developing in my lawn. Where I live, like it or not, most of us have a lot of lawn. I don't care much about it and I don't do much to it or for it. My husband feels a little more strongly about it than I do, but in general, as long as it is mostly green, we live with it. But the ugly brown patches forming in my St. Augustine grass are even starting to bother me. My lawn guy says its cinch bugs. From the research I've done, the damage sure looks like chinch bugs.

From earthquake fundraisers in Miami to business forums in Port-au-Prince, conversations about a homeland in crisis are giving way to a new political possibility in the United States — or a missed opportunity for the South Florida Haitian-American community. Four Haitian-Americans, all big names with deep roots in the community, are candidates in a crowded field vying for the congressional seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, who is making a bid for the U.S. Senate.

- As anti-tax and small-government enthusiasts began pouring into Nashville, Tenn., on Thursday for the National Tea Party Convention, leaders hoped the event would be an important step toward shedding the movement's chaotic image and establishing it as a national electoral force. "I know it's very hard to define the tea party with one message," said Rebecca Wales, spokeswoman for SmartGirlPolitics.org, an online network popular with tea party activists and a convention sponsor.

The Catholic school whose students made a giant plea for their school's survival has been rescued by last-minute donors. "It has been an outpouring of support that has just been phenomenal," said Sacred Heart School Principal Candy Tamposi. The school announced after a Mass on Friday that it met the $350,000 fundraising goal needed to keep the school open for the 2010-11 school year. The school has been trying to raise the money since last year when the Diocese of Palm Beach, which has subsidized the school for years, decided it could not afford to subsidize the school any longer.

The South County Political Cooperative, which has for years used its voting muscle to influence the Palm Beach County Commission, has decided to try its hand on the state Legislature. The powerful condominium and homeowner group is sending five of its leaders to Tallahassee at the end of the month to lobby for issues affecting the southern portion of the county. "I`ve got an army," said Andre Fladell, coordinator of the two-year-old cooperative. "I`m sending my coast guard, my national guard and my air force."

Editor's Note: As a community newspaper, The Forum tells the stories of our neighbors' daily lives, including their struggles and accomplishments. In this issue, we introduce to you a few locals who have toiled at the grass-roots level to make an impact on their community in 2009. What kind of impact will you make in 2010? Tell us at tamarac@tribune.com.

Palm Beach County political newcomer Everett Wilkinson seeks to lead South Florida's "irate, tireless minority." Wilkinson and a few others teamed up to create the South Florida Tea Party group, the local effort of the national anti-government-spending movement. The South Florida group opposes President Barack Obama's push for health care reform and potential property tax rate increases in Broward and Palm Beach counties, among other things. At the top of its website the group features a quote from Samuel Adams, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, saying that an "irate, tireless minority" can prevail by "setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men."